Toronto Fringe Review: Reesor

20 minutes into Reesor I wanted to stand up and yell THIS IS MY FAVORITE PLAY. heh. seriously. I loved it.

It is described thusly in promotions:

Between 1926-1945, 400 people called Reesor, Ontario home. Now, all that remains is a pile of stone. Surrounded by wilderness, alone in the bush, how do you build a home? For those that survived, the memories are like heaven on earth. Reesor, the true story of a lost utopian paradise in the Boreal Forest. Featuring music written/performed by Andrew Penner, Dave McEathron, Gord Bolan.

Which gives you an idea, but does not do this funny, magical, sudden tears play justice. Of course, if you could have said it in words, you’d have written a book instead of making a play, eh?

Reesor is the story of a town named Reesor - named for the man who lent a tiny group of Mennonite settlers the money for their one way ticket train fares into the forest so they could settle it with him and create a home there. Reesor is a Mennonite story. The citizens of Reesor came to Canada from Russia, fleeing Stalinist horror and persecution (1/3 of all Mennonite men in Russia were abducted during the Stalinist era, the info-packed programbook tells me). They try to farm impossible land, dark woods, and it’s a story you know is going to be sad before it starts as the sign hanging on the ghostly lovely set reads: Have Given Up. Help Yourself.

Photo By Ed Gass Donnelly

The main character Anna, is a little girl who gets older writting letters to her sister who isn’t there. She’s funny, and heart wrenchy as a 12 year old girl carrying the weight of being the only woman in Reesor, and stays bafflingly good throughout, keeping her face clear of any of the secrets she knows as writer and actor. She give a performance that’s like a series of clear true notes being played. She is accompanied on stage by 3 other great actors, men who are also musicians and soundscape improvisors throughout the show - Andrew Penner, Gord Bolan and Dave EcEathron. They throw in noises and responses, and play all different kinds of groups of people throughout the story - teenage boys, traders in the town store, the ladies aid society (only they call it Ferein or Verein. Thank you programbook). They play music and characters in a way that has lightness and surprise, and elicits both chuckles and deep true-history empathy.The communication between the group of earthy funny funky men feels lively and almost improvised, though you can tell by is complexity it’s been lovingly directed. This circle of performers do all this acting, but also thump and saw away with effective emotion and music loving talent on the most beautifully odd and lovely innovative instruments I’ve ever seen in a play.

The instruments, once I’d gotten a look at them (luckily sitting in the second row) were what broke the camels back in me of wanting to holla. They were lent to the production by the artist who made them, Iner Souster and it sounds as though he was surprised and happy to be asked, (yes, huzzah, he keeps a blog.) which is a little lesson about ask and you shall receive, eh? They’re so amazing I might have been too intimidated to talk to him. The instruments are assemblages of chicken cookers and training pipes and broken furniture, and they make well tuned songs and happy noises. They have names like Percussive Droid, Sir Michael’s Metal Ukulele, and Sympathetic Slide Chicken Cooker in Open G.

Erin Brandenburg and Lauren Taylor wrote this play based on letters and interviews. Lauren directed and Erin plays the lead. To their great credit it feels like a real ensemble piece - everyone in it and everything about it shines, but most especially the beautiful theatricality or stage craft of it all.

Here are 3 examples of what I mean, ok, ready?

1.

There is a clothesline across the stage, which alows for all kinds of gentle business, like putting up the sheets, ducking behind them, folding them into your arms to be a baby, then unfurling them and putting them back up. So all this stuff is stage craft and lovely, but the crowning bit of sweetness is that the sheet hung in the middle of the row of 3 has an odd kind of shape cut out of it, sort of like the roof of a barn or church, making a frame or doorway for different moments. The center of Anna’s dress is the same material, it looks like the pieces for the dress pattern were cut out of the sheet, it looks like she is a piece cut out of the landscape.

Photo By Ed Gass Donnelly

2.

This is such a quick little thing, but when the town sees the northern lights for the first time (and think it’s God come for the end of the world) the Aurora Borealis effect is made by one of the guys on stage, crouched by a drum in the dim with a big flashlight, bouncing the light off the shiney back of a metal instrument. The colours and light are magical in the dark room - yes! magical dammit!

3.

The third bit of theatricality that was bust yer heart delightful (gush gush gush watchout) was a short scene that consisted only of a recipe. Erin (playing Mrs.Issak instead of Anna in this scene) tells you how to cook Zweiback. She speaks in Plautdietch, quickly, and beside her, a very eager and anxious smiling helpful Andrew Penner flips up signs as fast as he can to translate. Between her kneading on her knees and his tall juggling; her fast talking Plautdietch and his silence and signs it’s a super dynamic slapstick funny scene. Super good idea in a play with lots of letters and sad stuff.

Oyoufff - I could good and on.

What can I say, the whole thing was well done, and truthful, involved learning and earnestness and shadow puppets and was thus right up my alley. 5 stars and highfives from me for Reesor.

See it at the Toronto Fringe!!